She laughed again. Ah yes, but she couldn't repeat them d'abord, she would have to refer to her book.
He had difficulty in controlling his voice sufficiently to inquire what her book was.
Oh, it was just a little book which her mother had given her, a little book of la cuisine. Could he see it? Why certainly, but it could not possibly interest monsieur, it was only a common little book, and dirty.
Ah, as usual it would be soiled, perhaps badly, for it was evidently still in constant use; but so long as it were complete one might possibly be able to clean it. What delightful thoughts and anticipations passed through his mind as the hostess slowly descended the rickety stairs to fetch her treasure! At last he had found it, and just in the very sort of house and town where he had always expected to come across it. Well, well, if you make up your mind to have a thing and search eagerly enough for it, you are bound to obtain it in the long run.
Then another thought entered his mind: how much should he offer her for it? Probably she would not part with it unless he named a sum which she could not resist; yet if the sum were at all large she might suspect the book's value and refuse. Ten francs, twenty-five, a hundred? While he was deliberating this important point she was ascending the stairs. Should he turn his back to her, shut his eyes, and tell her to place the volume on the middle of the table, then suddenly turn about and gloat upon the little treasure?
Before he could make up his mind she came in and he got his second surprise that day. It was not as pleasant as the first, for in her hands she held a thick octavo volume bound in shiny black leather. Heavens! . . . a large-paper copy? . . . No, no, impossible. . . .
'Le voici, m'sieu.'
Our poor book-hunter's feelings almost overcame him, and he opened the dirty manuscript volume mechanically, feebly muttering 'très intéressant.' She watched him closely, and from that moment considered him slightly mad. However, the book certainly did contain sixty-two recipes for cooking eggs as well as receipts for making fancy pastry and cakes. Whether it was copied out of the 'Pastissier' I know not; but certain it is that the hostess had no knowledge of, nor had ever seen, that volume.
There must be many book-treasures lying hid in all these ancient towns of Northern France, towns also that lie far off the restless tourist's track, small country towns in which the majority of the houses are slipshod timbered relics of a bygone age. No striking or unusual feature can they offer to the curious, and so for the most part they are dismissed in brief by the guide book. Yet there is many an aged building in Brittany where old books do still lie hid, as our bookman knows from the library of a friend who lives in Finisterre. St. Brieuc, Guingamp, Morlaix, Quimper, even Brest, all these must harbour long-forgotten books.
But there are other towns which no power on earth shall force our book-hunter to disclose. One there is far off the beaten track, where the houses, painted with bright colours, lean all askew, supporting each other and sometimes almost toppling across the narrow winding streets. So that, entering it, one seems to have stepped suddenly into some such fairy town as exists in the pages of Grimm or Hans Andersen; and, half ashamed, one peers curiously at the dwellers in this goblin town, as though expecting to find that they have pointed ears and narrow elfin feet. They never seem to move about, and, sitting at almost every doorstep, watch one intently from weird nooks and crannies. Hurry and bustle are here unknown, and though they will reply to you in the best of French, yet to each other the townsfolk speak a strange and uncouth tongue.